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Is my R7000 router with 40% signal degradation about to die?
Have this basic setup Xfinity => CM700 (modem) => R7000 (router) =(wired)=> PC For simplicity let's say I get 500 Mbps from Comcast. If I do the following: Xfinity => CM700 (modem) =(wired)=...
Popo99 wrote:I then realized I had a spare Asus router, RT AC66U (comparable to the R7000). I started using it to test. Initial tests results were pretty miserable. I only got 10% (like 50 Mbps). I thought there was an issue between Asus and my Netgear modem. Since I can do anything on this router, I moved to follow @plemans to factory reset it.
What came out was a surprise. I got 100% of the speed from Comcast. Asus does not seem to have an app that can run Speedtest on the router, so I did the tests on the PC, which should be more "reliable". So my modem is fine. My cables are fine.
The last thing, there is got to be something wrong with the R7000.
It should not be a surprise. While it is a pain, the repair value of a firmware default reset far exceeds the pain it causes.
The design of the R7000 is several years old and many of the machines have thousands of hours of run time on them. Like anything electronic, it ages. Heat, voltage spikes, and power surges all take a cumulative toll on the device. Many many R7000's are still running fine and providing good service.
(Netgear comments won't allow edit, even for the first 30 seconds, so I want to add this from the last comment: because I can't easily shut down the connection, I did not try reset.)
In my initial post, I did not mention, but I did run a Nighthawk app speedtest. The results at first showed some noticeable difference (like 7-10% faster), but the results were not sustainable. Eventually Nighthawk Speedtest fell into a range of 5% faster than test from a PC.
Early on I realized I had an extended list of blocked sites (for ads), then as @Kitsap and @plemans (in a different thread, https://community.netgear.com/t5/Cable-Modems-Routers/Have-interneet-with-modem-router-but-no-when-plugged-directly-in/m-p/2253207/highlight/false#M39931) pointed out, need to "make sure to leave qos, access control, traffic monitoring, and parental controls all disabled". I am not an advanced user, so I did not use many of of the controls at all. When I checked, I saw my traffic monitor was on. So I disabled both blocked sites and traffic control.
Initial tests were mixed. Not much an improvement on the PC site, but initial results from Nighthawk Speedtest saw some 15% improvement. So I get 75%*500 Mbps = 385, still not 100%. I understand Nighthawk Speedtest was run on the router itself. so this made sense and it can point to a problem with my cabling. But a day later the difference disappeared, I only saw some 5-8% improvement, very unstable.
I also follow @Kitsap to check Port statistics, which looked good, as well as trying to stare into the physical ports themselves. Did not see anything unusual either. I did not have a lot of spare cables. So did not try checking.